Rope

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ROPE - PAGE 2

Some people think of jumping rope as just another silly game that girls play. But double-dutch jumping with two ropes is an entirely different kind of workout. "It's very physical and everyone accepts it as a sport because they see the talent and skill that go into it," says Pam Frazier, a longtime double dutcher. The sport needs two girls who each turn two ropes while one or more girls jump. Frazier started a Girl Scout troop whose main activity is double-dutch rope jumping at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center in Evanston, where they meet.

A lake bottom is a gloomy, lightless world. Divers who swim down there to search for bodies are "absolutely blind," said Libertyville Fire Chief Bob Zamor. "You can't see up or down," he said. "Most of our lakes are black. You're lucky if you can see your hand in front of your face." Divers who descend into this purgatory are as sightless as pupfish. They need a pair of eyes, so firefighters on shore guide the men underwater with ropes. This week, the Libertyville Fire Department has been practicing the technique, known as shore-based rope patterns, in Butler Lake, one of the town's three lakes.

A former neighbor of Cynthia and David Dowaliby testified Thursday that he had seen their son playing with "the same type of rope" later found around the neck of the couple's slain daughter. Jeffrey Koleczek, who lived two doors away at the time, said that after Jaclyn's disappearance he never saw David Dowaliby Jr., then 4, playing with the clothes line-type rope again. A nearly 25-foot-long rope was wrapped twice around 7-year-old Jaclyn's neck when her body was found near a Blue Island apartment complex four days after her parents reported her missing in September 1988.

Probably the most intriguing aspects of "Rope," now in revival at Bailiwick Repertory, are its marked differences from Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 movie. Make no mistake--Patrick Hamilton's 1929 thriller is a creaky, parlor-room mystery. It's set not in '40s Manhattan but in London's Mayfair between the wars--a fact that lends the drama some social underpinnings missing from the movie. And, to their credit, Bailiwick's David Zak and his players have fun with the material. Though this inspires a mannered, sometimes cartoonish style, it also blows away the cobwebs and uncovers one or two revelations, suggesting "Rope" is more than melodrama, if less than "An Inspector Calls."

By Bernard Gladstone, New York Times Special Features | January 31, 1997

Q--Our house still has old-fashioned wood storm windows that we put up each fall, then replace in the summer with screens. My problem is that these sashes don't fit as well as they should. Cold air gets into the space between the storm sash and the window. I've tried sponge-type weatherstripping around the edges, but this doesn't work too well and it doesn't last. Any other suggestions, short of installing expensive new metal storm windows? A--Your simplest and least-expensive solution is to caulk around the edges of the storm window with a rope-type caulking material that you can buy in most hardware stores and home centers.

It was Muhammad Ali who invented the rope-a-dope, the strategy of defending and retreating while letting a seemingly stronger but less wily opponent flail himself to exhaustion--and defeat. Bill Clinton, who has been nothing if not blessed in his enemies, is demonstrating that the rope-a-dope can work as well in a congressional hearing room as in the squared circle of the boxing ring. In Clinton's case, the dope being roped is the Henry Hyde-led Republican majority on the House Judiciary Committee, a partisan posse who on Tuesday voted to expand the impeachment inquiry triggered by Kenneth Starr's charges of perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair to the issue of possible campaign finance violations in the 1996 presidential election.

Police are practicing their rope-throwing skills after the department received four new rope bags to help prevent drownings in the Fox River. Two of the rope bags were bought by Local 3436 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said Corey Briggs, a firefighter and secretary of the local. The bags cost $27 each, and each consists of a nylon bag with a plastic ring on the bottom and about 75 feet of rope. A St. Charles resident donated the other two. Police Chief Robert J. Warren said he would like to see a rope bag in each of the department's nine patrol cars.

They were tucked away in the corner of the store, back behind the team sports caps, exercise outfits, home workout machines and a mountainous wall of shoes for every possible sport. A salesman found them on a bottom shelf, below the weight-lifting gloves. He sniffed, not impressed with a bona fide winter training bargain. The stash? Jump ropes for about $5. Jumping rope is not for everyone, but neither is it just for schoolgirls or boxers. It can do wonders for your hand-eye-foot coordination, linking the nervous system with your muscles.

A 10-year-old boy who was playing with a jump rope became entangled in it and hanged himself, authorities said Wednesday. Julio Morales of the 6400 block of West 64th Place was playing with a rope he had tied to the railing of a second-floor porch at about 5:30 p.m. Monday when he became snarled in it and fell, police said. The boy was taken to Cook County Hospital with a broken neck and was placed on a respirator, police said. He was pronounced dead at 2:35 p.m. Tuesday at the hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

While other communities have unsuccessfully tried border collies, plastic alligators and scarecrows to rid certain areas of nuisance geese, Orland Park has decided to use a little rope and nature. Village workers have been stringing the rope along the perimeter of the detention ponds to keep geese from wandering out of the water and onto neighboring homeowners' properties. "For some reason, the geese won't hop over the rope," which will be at a level of about 12 to 18 inches, said village Public Works Director Pete Casey.